Before you begin, make sure you’ve read Linnaeus’s “Homo in the System of Nature” and Buffon’s “Geographical and Cultural Distribution of Mankind.”
For this assignment, choose EITHER Linnaeus or Buffon.
For your chosen reading (Linnaeus or Buffon):
1. Identify and copy one passage (1 sentence, 1 full paragraph, or the first and last sentences of a larger excerpt) that encapsulates the author’s views on the nature of humans and human difference. Analyze your chosen passage in 1-2 sentences. Explain how your author views humans as a larger category and how he understands differences between humans. (What distinguishes one group of humans from another? Are some groups of humans considered better than others?)
2. Identify and copy one passage (1 sentence, 1 full paragraph, or the first and last sentences of a larger excerpt) where you think the author gives insight into his methodology. That is, what methods did your author use or think he used to develop his conclusions? Analyze your second passage in 1-2 sentences. Use the passage to explain the methods your author used to develop his conclusions or to justify them to readers. (For example, does he claim his conclusions are based on observation? Does he conceive of his project of human classification as similar to the study of the night sky? Does he think his project is an attempt to understand God’s design of the universe?)
3. Finally, in a minimum of 2-4 sentences, answer the following question: do you agree that Enlightenment thinkers like Linnaeus and Buffon inaugurated a type of “scientific racism”?
